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<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
<!ENTITY % British-English "INCLUDE"
> <!-- change language only here -->
]>

<article lang="&language;">
<articleinfo>

<authorgroup>
<author
>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;</author>
<author
>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
<othercredit role="translator"
><firstname
>Malcolm</firstname
><surname
>Hunter</surname
><affiliation
><address
><email
>malcolm.hunter@gmx.co.uk</email
></address
></affiliation
><contrib
>KDE British Conversion</contrib
></othercredit
> 
</authorgroup>

<date
>2002-02-12</date>
<releaseinfo
>3.00.00</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword
>KDE</keyword>
<keyword
>KControl</keyword>
<keyword
>Windows shares</keyword>
</keywordset>
</articleinfo>
<sect1 id="windows-shares">
<title
>Windows Shares</title>

<sect2 id="windows-shares-intro">
<title
>Introduction</title>

<para
>In many small local area networks, the <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> protocol is used to offer network services. Names like <quote
>&Windows; Network</quote
> or <quote
>&Windows; for Workgroups Network</quote
> or <quote
>LanManager</quote
> are often used as well. Using <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> you can access so-called <quote
>shares</quote
> (&ie; folders made available by the server) as well as printers. </para>

<para
>&kde; comes with built-in support for the <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> protocol. As &kde; is network-transparent that means you can access <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> shares from everywhere you can access your local files, for example in the &konqueror; file manager and in the file dialogue. To make use of this you should provide &kde; with some information on your <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> network. But do not worry, this is normally pretty simple as, for example, all the Windows clients in your network need and have the same information.</para>

<!-- Don't know if the following info should go in the base
documentation --> 

<!-- this smb-ioslave doesn't support showing a list
of hosts (like e.g. smb:/), for this you need the lan or rlan-ioslave,
very cool thing (TM) btw. If you want to write some documentation for
this one too, have a look at kdenetwork/lanbrowsing/lisa/README and
contact me if you have questions. -->

<note
><para
>For the <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> protocol to work, it is required to have <application
>Samba</application
> correctly installed. If you have an NT domain controller, you will need at least <application
>Samba</application
> version 2.0 or higher. If you want to access &Windows; 2000 shares, you will need <application
>Samba</application
> version 2.0.7 or higher. Older versions may work too, but have not been tested.</para
></note>

<!-- TODO: link to some place which explains USING SMB, i.e. konqueror
or file dialog manual -->

</sect2>

<sect2 id="windows-shares-use">
<title
>Use</title>

<para
>Although there are a lot of insecure <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> networks out there which allow access to anyone, in principle you have to authenticate yourself to access the services of an <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> server. By default, &kde; will use the data entered in the <guilabel
>Default user name</guilabel
> and <guilabel
>Default password</guilabel
> fields to authenticate itself on <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> hosts. If you leave the field <guilabel
>Default user name</guilabel
> empty, &kde; will try to access <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> hosts without a username. If you leave the default password empty, it will try without a password. If &kde; is unsuccessful accessing the host using these settings, you will be asked for a username and a password.</para>

<important
><para
>While it makes things more comfortable if &kde; stores your <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> password, this may be a security problem. If you are using <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> in a security conscious environment, you should not store your password here but rather enter it anew every time you need to access an <acronym
>SMB</acronym
> host.</para
></important>

<para
>In the <guilabel
>Workgroup</guilabel
> field, you can enter your workgroup name. If you don't know it, ask your system administrator or have a look at other already configured machines in your network. However, in most cases providing the workgroup name is not required, so you probably can also leave this empty.</para>

<para
>If the option <guilabel
>Show hidden shares</guilabel
> is checked, shares ending with a <quote
>$</quote
> will be shown.</para>
</sect2>

</sect1>

</article>